Edge of Tomorrow

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I was a child my mother used to tell me the sky was blue because it reflected the ocean. I would sit in her arms and look up at the clear blue waves, untainted and pure, rolling across the heavens...

As I lay in the French beach, drowning in my own blood, I remembered; and saw her words were true.

A brilliant scarlet sky, clouds like shredded flesh soaked in watered-down red... Thousands of good soldiers - awash with saltwater, blood, peppered with shrapnel and Mimic carcass. The sky, the sea, the ground soaked in blood.

I thought I knew what I signed up for. I believed... in the honor of sacrifice, to rallying our strength and showers of glory. Standing up for mankind. A savior.

Shock ebbed away, raw pain tearing into my stomach. My body reflexively retched, but nothing came up except what precious air I had.

I was dying.

 

My name is Kamigawa Gizin. I live in a dying world.

I’m not saying the planet’s dying. Maybe it its. Maybe not. Humanity doesn’t have the luxury of finding out, because we are being wiped out.

Exactly six years ago, a meteor crash-landed in Europe. From it came a flood of hell-beasts. Well, not hell. Ironically, since it came from the heavens. We call them Mimic. They’re nothing like we’ve seen before; strong, fast, and unbelievably hard. It takes a lot of ammo to kill just one.

We were being massacred… until one day at Verdun, the tides turned. Fukuzawa Yukichi – dubbed ‘The Wolf of Verdun’. He led our first victory against the bastards. Now we have them contained within Europe.

I’m a volunteer soldier, applied during my college years. Strange how I could’ve just stayed behind a desk. But I’m not the only one who has the same story. We needed as much help as we can. And I came a far way to get here.

We trained at various places in Britain, usually with this new battle suit technology. Nine grueling months later I passed fit for Operation Downfall, France. Too short for original standards, but that was how desperate we were.

I was marching to death, yes. But I had faith. You only live once, and then you only die once, right? My one chance at saving humanity.

 

How stupid I was.

 

I saw it. A Mimic - but it was the biggest I’d ever seen, and glowing blue. That was definitely not one of the monsters that we fought. This was new.

I choked, but no words came out.

Its neck turned, like a serpent from hell… and our eyes connected. It bared its teeth and twisted fully around, bounding across the hills of the dead.

“Shit!”

I scrabbled backwards, panic gripping my chest. A scream bubbled violently in my lungs.

- I don’t want to die

-I don’t want to die

My hand struck against a dead comrade’s suit. I didn’t have time to feel sick; my eyes landed on a war grenade. I lunged -

- the Mimic was nearly on top of me

- my fingers scratched against the trigger

 

- detonation knocked my teeth out -

 

- Mimic carcass and pus all over me –

 

 

 

 

- BURNED

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- And I woke.

Back in my bunk. The day before Operation Downfall. My bunkmate’s surprised voice. Wow, Gizin. I never saw you wake up this sharp. Guess you’re ready for death and glory. Voices, shapes, lives that were dead just seconds before. Milling around me like nothing happened.

 

“Abort Operation Downfall. They know. They know we’re coming! They know we’re fucking coming!”

I still died in that attempt. They taped my mouth and strapped me in, because even though one foot soldier froths at the mouth, we still need numbers. Crazy in the head can still afford to be crazy in the battlefield, right?

 

I died six times before I met him.

 

The Wolf of Verdun - the man who lead the first victory against Mimic. An orphan who supposedly excelled at martial arts, adapted quicky to the suit and razed down Mimics almost like he knew everything they’d do before it happened. That no man or Mimic could kill him, or so they jabbered.

Everything repeated. It didn’t matter that I got sick of it. I knew everything that every Mimic, every human soldier would do. When the bullets would zing. In what pattern would the Mimic slash. When I saw a guy in the line of death, I didn’t have time to think who he was. All I knew is that the chopper next to him was going to explode. He had the same silver hair and the tired face everybody broadcasted, a picture I’d seen millions of times. He even looked irritated when I crashed into him and blasted the Mimic behind him to bits.

But his expression changed when I spoke.

“The chopper’s blowing in thirty seconds. We need to go.”

The man did not move. Standing very still, he looked at me. He saw me kill the Mimic, didn’t he? Why-

“What the fuck are you doing? Move! The chopper’s going to blow up! In -”

“Come meet me when you wake up.”

“I- what?”

“When you wake up.”

 

The chopper blew.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Getting away from training is not easy. It shouldn’t be easy to meet a Sergeant, either. But that part was relatively smooth. He trained harder than any of us, and that meant he required robot arms quipped with razors. The biggest training arena. I remember… for the many times that I died and lived, the shape of him growing larger and larger as I approached. Silent, because he was bench-pressing at the time.

 

“You told me to come meet you… when I woke up.”

 

It was tiresome to introduce myself over and over, but it was better than being alone. Even though he didn’t remember, I did. And it was better because he understood. He told me about Verdun. He explained why the loops happened. Apparently, he had a friend who had done thorough biological study of the Mimics, and found that they wasn’t just aliens, plural. They were a single entity. The black Mimics were like cells, or just physical extensions. The blue Mimic – the one that bled all over me as it died, and thus gave me its blood – are called Alphas. The Omega is the brain. It’s not a specie. Whenever an Alpha dies, the Omega automatically resets time to save it. The blue Alpha is incredibly rare. It was just a stroke of luck – or misfortune? – that its blood mixed with mine before I died properly. I’m not a perfect replica, though. When I get injured and somebody injects me with new blood, I lose the power. That’s what happened to Fukuzawa at Verdun. He figured out a way to win… but he couldn’t go back once he unwillingly went through blood transfusion.

I’m an Alpha now. When I die, the Omega tries to save me by resetting the day. While I live, it does its best to kill me. When I get injured, I must try my best to die immediately.

 

The plan was this. We knew where the Omega was, because random times when I died, I dreamed of a place. They were like occasional flash neuron pulses from the brain. After landing on the beach, we’d make our way over to each village, approaching base. Needless to say, I died multiple times. I was shocked at first when I so much as sprained an ankle… and Fukuzawa shot me in the head. But I got used to it. I shot myself several times, too, before he could.

 

“Fukuchi Ouchi. You talked about him.”

He stared at me for a very, very long time. I saw what little humor I had tried so much to instill in him freeze away.

“No. I did not.”

“But-”

“Enough.”

 

We managed to get over to the village. Nobody else did. He was hurt – always under the ribs – so we camped at an abandoned house. There was a helicopter in front of the barn, but we couldn’t find the keys.

We sat in front of the barn door after I patched him up. Bleeding, but thankfully not fatal enough. He thanked me… and ruined it by a follow-up.

“Kamigawa Gizin. That’s not your real name.”

I didn’t have anything to say. Part of me thought that this shouldn’t be a problem now, but we weren’t in battle right now. I didn’t have a way out. No distractions.

“Of course I briefed your files. Your forged identity popped up exactly two years ago. I’m not exactly sure why you didn’t get caught yet, but I didn’t think of it as an important problem. Because killing the Omega is our utmost priority, over something petty as forging. Or theft.”

He didn’t continue, so I decided to confess. He was right. That wasn’t important right now. Whatever I was going to say… they were going to be just words.

“I didn’t do it for a dead friend or something. I did it… because of my mother.”

“For your mother? Was she… a victim?”

I laughed drily.

“As heroic as that sounds, no. And it’s not for her. It’s because of her. Well, you see, I’m not nobody in the eyes of administration… my mother, she’s a diplomat who has power…. Which means when I signed up for the military, she made sure I was posted somewhere safe. As far away as possible from the front lines. I was sick of it. I -”

I stopped myself, unable to bear looking at him.

“Because I wanted to come to the front lines and fight. I… thought I was going to be hero. That I was fighting for humanity and a miracle.”

I looked up at the dark sky. Stars that were visible because mankind for miles around were dead. Beautiful and eerie. I finally had the courage to look at him. His eyes, originally pale, were shaded by the dark.

“I was naïve… but I realized I didn’t want to die. But now… I don’t know anymore. I have a chance. I have all the chances stuffed down my throat. So now I don’t have a choice at all. Missed my parents at first, but now everything feels numb.”

I didn’t have anything to say after that. We sat in silence… until he spoke up.

“I never knew my parents.” His eyes were fixed on the wall. “I was raised at government facility… and I was trained from a very early age. I never knew another world. Didn’t have much qualms, either. I know what it feels like. Believing you serve a noble purpose. A notion that you are going to save your country and humanity…” He tilted his head back and exhaled. “I did – committed many things. I’ve…”

He trailed off, slowly turning his head towards me. I met his gaze and saw a quiet kindling in his eyes. A pale blaze.

“I suppose it doesn’t matter anymore… I can’t betray you, and you can’t turn on me. So here’s a piece of truth. I’ve killed people for political reasons. I was a pawn for… the government. You know why these suits were developed so quickly in the first place? Maybe you do, from your mother. War was already brewing between nations. Something was going to detonate inevitably. It’s just… we didn’t know we’d have company. Priorities changed. I was picked as one of the initial test subjects for the suits. Then… Verdun happened.” His left eyelid twitched. “I’m sorry I snapped when you mentioned Genichiro.”

“Who?”

“Right… Fukuchi. You know him as Fukuchi Ouchi. But that was after he changed his name. I grew up with him and I call- called him Genichiro. I watched him die over and over… but when I lost the loop, I knew I had to give up on him. He couldn’t be saved. When the battle was won, he died anyway.” He closed his eyes. “That night, while everybody cheered for victory outside, I raised a gun to my mouth… because maybe, maybe the loop wasn’t gone… but I knew it did. And I didn’t kill myself.” He let out a thin breath. “Some nights, I wish I had.”

“I… didn’t know.”

“Most people don’t. He lost his mind in the battlefield, that’s why. It’s a dark thing we don’t speak of, soldiers and their disgrace.”

He looked at me straight and gripped my shoulders. It startled me, because he was never the one to make unnecessary physical contact. He looked at me intently and spoke like he was trying to wake me from coma.

“Gizin. I know you’re mad – and I mean not right in the head – right now. I was. I went mad in the battlefield. Only after Verdun, after I stopped dying over and over again, did I recuperate. And you’re going to do it as well. I probably killed you before. I have killed you before. But when you wake up, I want you to come to me. We are going to win, and you are going to pull through. Remember that. But there’s another important thing I need from you.”

No…

“You have the keys, don’t you.”

It wasn’t a question. I stood, trying to maintain calm. He could take me down if he wanted. He could kill me and start over again. My skin crawled.

“Give it to me.”

“No.”

I heard him stand up. Didn’t come at me, though.

“There’s a Mimic, three blocks down. When you rev up the helicopter, it’s gonna come. And it never misses. I watched you die, hundreds of times. No matter what I do, what path I take, the endless choices I make, you die. We go past this, you die.”

“Give me the keys, soldier.”

“There's nothing you can do.”

“It's the only thing we can do.”

“We could stay here. We could wait.”

“Wait for what? The only thing we should be doing is hunt down that Mimic.”

“You can't. You tried everything.... I saw.”

Fukuzawa’s jaw clenched, his gaze hardening.

“Then I'll just have to do what's left.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The bravest thing I did was try to run away.

I didn’t think of that option before. Desertion- the greatest disgrace a soldier can imagine.

So when I woke up this time, I took my chance. I saw an opening, swiped some clothes and a bike, and off to London I went. I hit a bar and chugged down three glasses of gin straight. I never liked being drunk. Meaning I went down willingly. I let go of everything – my balance, my sanity, and the contents of my stomach over the bridge railing into the Thames. I never heard the sirens.

As reproaching me for defiling the river, a Mimic crawled out of the currents and ripped off my face.

 

I tried to do it alone. Nothing, absolutely nothing else has ever tempted me more than to go up to him and tell him. Even if those words would have to be the same thing my lips were tired of uttering.

I failed. Every time.

I needed him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I knew it when he died. He did. We won… because I went back to him. Finally, finally succeeded in escaping that forsaken village without dying. There was only one shot at this – we found the base, but there were full of Alphas. We tore through them. Well, he tore through them. There was a path, and he stayed behind. I knew it when he died, because that kind of explosion doesn’t leave survivors at all. Even Mimics. It was created exactly for that purpose. There was a second bomb strapped onto me. I have never tried to drown myself so fast before, but that was what I did in the pool that housed the Omega. An Alpha half-killed me…

But I still pulled that pin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- And I woke.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Getting away from training is not easy. But all the Mimic had died overnight for an unidentified reason, and we were celebrating. It shouldn’t be easy to meet a Sergeant, either. But that part was relatively smooth. He trained harder than any of us, and that meant he required robot arms quipped with razors. The biggest training arena. I remember… for the many times that I died and lived, the shape of him growing larger and larger as I approached. Silent, because he was bench-pressing at the time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“You told me to come meet you when I woke up.”